Hubac's Historian

Well, John, what a fabulous and innovative journey this has been to follow your project. I am as awestruck with this being your first complicated ship model, as I am with Marc Yeu’s Soleil Royal, in wood - also a first attempt in that medium. You are a true artist, colorist, engaged and engaging historian and an extremely resourceful problem-solver. Your execution is superb! I often wonder whether Heller representatives look-in on these kit-bash projects and ever consider a re-issue of the kit in a more historically accurate edition. If they do, you have created a prototype that the world-over would scramble to get their hands on. In typical John Ott style, you have even created the box art for them. I love your model for many reasons, but the totality of it, I think, conveys a strong sense of the magnificence that the actual ship must have embodied. I sincerely hope it won’t be another 10 years before your next ship model. I have really enjoyed getting to know you, a bit, and hope that you will stick around! Fair winds mon ami! - Marc

Thank you, guys! The hospital cleared him to go home yesterday. His kidney function returned to normal, and he’s no worse for the wear. Thank you for asking.

David, Bill, Dan, and all who have visited recently - thank you for your well-wishes! We are all an aging crew, and I know that so many of you have tread the path I am walking now. It is so appreciated, on my end. My Dad is going to be okay. His scans all came out clean; no internal bleeding or broken bones. He isn’t happy to be there, but he will remain in-hospital for a few days to monitor his UTI and kidney function. Dan - as always, your advice is TIMELY! This was exactly what I needed to know. Thank you, again, my friend!

I don’t know either, but it works!

One observation just dawned on me, and I don’t know whether you did this deliberately, Eric, but the slightly wider than stock separation between the three lower bands of wales, actually improves the scale perception of the height between decks. This is one of those clever visual tricks that I recommend to anyone following in your foot steps.

The scale of the “lead” lining does not jump out at me. I think they look good.

Hello to all, This is just an alive and kicking post. The past several weeks have been pretty frenetic and filled with ups and downs. Thanksgiving was very nice, however the day after, my sister and I flew to Florida to see our Father’s brother (85), who landed in hospital with serious cardiac issues that necessitated an aortic valve replacement. I am grateful that we were able to see him, because he passed the day after we left on Sunday. Very tragic, as his wife passed in August of this year. My cousins are distraught, naturally. We then spent Sunday into Monday moving my Father to a new assisted living facility. While this process was fraught with all kinds of logistical problems and oversights, my Dad at least went willingly. He was, in fact, quite delighted with his new accommodations. Unfortunately, owing to his advancing dementia, we can’t even tell him about his brother. I don’t think he can even process that news, at this point. Overnight, my father took a hard fall, and now I am with him, in hospital, awaiting results of all the scans they did. I think he will be okay. He’s in better condition than I was expecting. Sooooo, needless to say - there hasn’t been a whole lot of time for modeling. Over a period of weeks, when I had the energy and attention span, I very carefully closed all of my breaching rope rings around their bulwark eye bolts. Druxey’s idea to file a groove into a pair of tweezers gave me just enough purchase to close the rings without completely collapsing their shape. Thanks again, David! Last night, before this latest misfortune, I was able to glue those guns in place: While I am not a saber-rattler, by any means, it is nice to see the ship begin to be armed as befitting her raison d’etre. The next step will be to arrange the breaching ropes in a more realistic fashion that conveys a sense of heft and a natural lay. I will achieve this with dilute white glue. After that, I can attach and arrange the haul-out tackles. One project that I would like to soon undertake is the design and fabrication of the new f’ocsle break rail, belfry and the quarter deck break rail. All of that gingerbread stuff makes me happy. Now, I would like to take this opportunity to introduce you all to my friend Eric Wiberg. He has undertaken his own Heller SR modification project, and it is quite a bit more ambitious than my own. He is modeling Soleil Royal, 1671. Here, a brief re-cap of his alterations, to date: He has completely re-mapped the wales so that the forward sheer is less pronounced, and the aft sheer rises appropriately for a vessel of this early time period. He has added to and arranged the artillery so that it is correct in number and placement. He has sanded away the kit grain, filled the kit plank lines, and scribed new plank lines that follow the new wale sheer. The wales are correctly graduated in scale, and the upper wales will eventually be ornamented with the famed l’istons d’or. Eric has created new, correctly scaled timberhead railings that will eventually be bracketed by dolphin hancing pieces. He has re-shaped the main deck ports so that they are correctly square. He has added a waist ladder, skids and scuppers, and he has planked his inner bulwarks. At the moment he is experimenting with the steave of the bowsprit, as he plans to completely re-construct the head, so that it has the more “Dutchy” early appearance of her near contemporary, La Reyne. Here, a few pics to whet your appetite: A number of people have undertaken these very complex modification builds. Eric possesses the talent and determination to bring this all to fruition. Please come take a look for yourselves: Until next time, let your friends and family know just how much you love them. All the best, Marc

I may yet do the socks. I just haven’t yet devised a convincing method of representing them. I suspect it can be done, off-model, with modelspan tissue and dilute white glue, formed around a dummy scupper. I just haven’t played around with that material yet.

As a side-note, I think your waist J-hancing pieces should drop down to and overlap the light drift-rail that runs just beneath the waist fighting holes. The fine “liston d’or” that adorns this rail would merely fair into these hancing Js.

Eric - this all looks fantastic. You have gotten right, IMO, the thing that eludes most with the skids: you have not over-scaled their projection from the hull. I also really like your waist ladder cut-through at the timberhead level. This is a very equitable solution to those particular problems of scale. Scuppers are an interesting subject of debate - their number and location. I concentrated my scuppers at the lowest point in the deck sheer - the waist. However - this highly detailed drawing of the 1668 Dauphin Royal supports the notion of scuppers along the rising deck sheer, between the main and mizzen masts: As far as I understand these drawings, there are very fine lines representing the relatively flat deck sheer (relative to the wale sheer), that are punctuated by dark dots that I believe represent the scuppers. Now, as to whether scuppers should always project from the hull sides: At the waist, in particular and below the lowest gun tier, projection from the hull and wales makes sense because these peculiar canvas back-flow sleeves, or socks, would be nailed to the end of the scupper pipes to prevent rolling seas from washing back into the lower decks: Above, said socks run through the waist, beneath the lower main wales and are mostly submerged beneath the waterline. So, maybe higher-sheer, aft-most scuppers were simply flush scuppers because any run-off that didn’t flow back out of them, would just work its way out at the waist?

Completely brilliant and beyond compare, Gary. I smell like fresh catch just looking at it!

Shrouds and ratlines look excellent, Bill!

It may be possible, but you’d have to map it carefully where ever the tumblehome is least obtrusive; beneath the lower battery ports/along the upper main wale, and above the middle battery ports/along the lower top wale. Even then, it may not work without introducing distortion, or ending up too short at the stern.

As a thought on plastic surgeries - one could remove an 1/8” band of “planking” all along the lower and middle batteries, in an effort to make the height of the Heller hull more reasonable. You could maybe even do this above the main deck guns. There are problems, though, with re-joining through the middle tier of guns where the tumblehome is a reverse curve. I am not at all suggesting that you should try this. There are multiple compounding issues, down the line, that make this very tricky and maybe impossible. It’s just a thought that popped into my head. One of the mitigating factors is that the Heller hull is a bit longer than it should be for the first ship, so that makes her height seem a little more proportional. In the end, what you are doing amounts to creating a combination of optical illusions that gives a sense of correctness.

While I agree with piercing the beakhead deck, the thing about Cedric’s comment that I’ve wrestled with is the possibility that the foot of the sprit-mast anchors between fore bit extensions at the lower battery level, as opposed to entering through the beakhead bulkhead and anchoring through bit extensions, at the middle deck level. If I remember, that is precisely what Nigel has modeled on his AL Soleil Royal build. This would account for the higher 40 degree angle that you tend to see on the early First-Marine ships. As I’ve mentioned in our correspondence, though, I think it becomes a matter of prioritizing one thing over the other. What has to be born in mind is the fact that the interspace between decks amounts to a very generous 7’ headroom. This exaggeration, if applied literally to the geometry of the bowsprit angle would be correspondingly exaggerated. I think you pattern your cutwater and headrails so that they are proportionally pleasing to the rest of the bow, and adjust your bowsprit angle accordingly. It won’t be exactly correct, but a reasonable impression of what is more or less correct for the period.

Generally, I abide by under-scale, when in doubt.

It’s a veeery fine line between “is right” and “looks right at scale.”

So, the skids look really good - great scribe around the wales. As for scale on the ladder steps - at 1:96 scale, the stock kit steps are a generous 1/32”, or 3” at full scale. Personally, I would not go beyond 1/16”, or 6” at scale, and I would carry that uniformly across the wales.

All very clever solutions to vexing problems, Gary. Great work, as always!

Excellent work on those plank lines.

Yeah, it all becomes a slippery slope in short order. But, I’m rooting for ya!

Here’s a thread on that very subject: Somewhere along the way, I also read that horse hair would be applied as a binder. So, yes, the white stuff would certainly obscure the planking strakes, if not completely obliterate them. You could fill most of what’s there and leave a few faint trace lines, here and there, to suggest the planking. Color, as these fine gentlemen note, would likely have been a dingy, yellowish white.

To be clear - I don’t think you would have to undo your wales, if you wanted to re-scribe plank lines. It’s just a lot if effort and it may not be worth it, frankly.

Fabulous is an understatement, here, Eric. I really love the graduation of the wales. It makes a big difference, and you have really nailed the sheer. Now, I’m going to preface what I’m about to say as a step or two too far for me, personally; it would be quite a lot of work for I’m not sure how much gain. However, in actual practice the planking strakes between the wales would follow the sheer of the wales. There, I’ve said the horrible thing. One COULD fill the kit plank lines at the point where they diverge from the sheer; mark out new plank lines with an ordinary drafting compass, following the wales; and then, very carefully engrave the new lines as they fair into the forward seams that you did not fill. This becomes exponentially more difficult for the complicated underwater portion of the hull. Personally, I don’t think I would do this. I think it depends, mostly, on what your paint plan is. However, if you are looking for some guidance as to how the under-hull of a ship like SR might be planked, I will direct you here: I talk about this model all the time because I love it so much. It is the best scratch-build of the ship that I am aware of. When I fantasize about doing another SR kitbash of this earliest representation of the ship - and your build has certainly dared me to dream - I imagine that I would do an all pale blue hull, with a thinned grey wash-coat. That wash-coat, though, would highlight all of the plank seams, and that dissonance with the wale sheer would be that much more apparent. As it builds out of the box, Heller failed to correctly represent the planking between the wales. At the bow, there are several thin sharply pointed plank lines that end into the wale sheer. It’s wrong, but the sheer is much flatter than what you are representing, here, so it doesn’t really jump out at you. Anyway, food for thought, or not, as you please. As for the listons d’or, I would gild these before applying them to the hull. It’s just easier. Personally, I think it is very difficult to get really good results with actual gold leaf. ‘72Nova’s La Reale build is a glittering example of the best possible results. I prefer paints and doing a layered gold with lowlights and highlights.

Hi Bill - I’m not speaking from a ton of experience here. I was 24 when I last rigged a model - rather poorly, by the way. My inclination would be to have all mast sections, tops and yards pre-made and rigged with all of their blocks. On my current build, I will have a combination of furled and un-furled sails. Those sails will all be attached to the yards, in advance. Because I don’t have any safely sheltered area to store the model, as it grows tall, my objective is to rig the model in a year or less. As for sequencing, I think the guiding principles are not making access too difficult for any one line with other lines previously installed, and also working in a way that allows the fore and back stays to always keep the masts straight and in-line with each other. Toward that end, I will probably install all of the lower masts first (shrouds, then fore-stays) working from the mizzen mast forward. This way, the main shrouds won’t make the setting up of the mizzen fore stay any more difficult than necessary. And so forth, working my way up the masts one section at a time. After all of the standing rigging is in place, I will attach the yards, and tackle all of the running rigging. Of course, the biggest un-resolved issue with that approach is how to rig the parrels, with the shrouds in the way. I’m definitely open to suggestions.